Friday, January 20, 2012

January Flying By...

I'm enjoying a relatively snow-free January, but despite the extra time I've had on my hands from not having to shovel, I've had little time for blogging. Reasons abound.

January is always busy, as we have graduate student admissions to deal with, and we're doing faculty searches this year. Lots of applications to read. As part of my Administrative position, I've had various other administration (read: promotion cases) to deal with. The paperwork buck stops with me, so I'm busy making sure all the i's get dotted, t's crossed. I've also had things to do for other Harvard-wide committees, which somehow landed on this month.

Besides that, there's been a fair amount of other writing. Another NSF proposal should be going in next week. Several new papers are coming into focus; I may have 1 (or more) submissions for ISIT and EC, both of which have early February deadlines. Hopefully when they're finished I'll have something to say about them here.

The MINE paper has actually been taking up a fair bit of time. Lots of people are contacting us about it; just getting through the e-mail is actually a noticeable chunk of the week. The response is more than I expected; the large majority of it seems positive.

Outside work has also been taking up a good deal of time while I don't have to teach. I testified at a trial recently, and was happy that the timing didn't interfere with the school semester.

Next week classes start. Things seem swamped until Feb 6. Post-EC deadline, I'll take a deep breath, and, with luck, then I'll be able to get a handle on what 2012 should look like.

I think in general terms, the negative thing about the job is it just takes time, both to do the actual work and to attend associated meetings. So that means less time to do research and prepare for teaching. As I've said frequently, I'm fortunate to have an excellent group of students (and colleagues, of course) that allow me to work with them, which is helping make up for my own lack of research time.

A more specific complaint is that sometimes rules and procedures made somewhere else in the Administrative University are, to put it bluntly, stupid. (Read Dilbert to get the idea.) More kindly, they perhaps make sense from the point of view of an administrator who doesn't have to actually implement the rule or procedure, but not much sense to us faculty who then have to do the work.

As you can imagine, I'm not the type to quietly accept such things. (However, I don't feel the need to voice specific examples in public.) Fortunately, my immediate level up is willing to listen to my complaints, and shares a solution-oriented (rather than process-oriented) mindset. So if we can come up with a suitable solution that's unlikely to introduce problems, she will generally allow us to do things "our way", especially after given evidence that the officially sanctioned way is not effective.

Overall, though, as I also frequently mention, I have great colleagues (and a great boss), so the job is really not so bad at all.

sometimes rules and procedures made somewhere else in the Administrative University are, to put it bluntly, stupid.[...] perhaps make sense from the point of view of an administrator who doesn't have to actually implement the rule or procedure, but not much sense to us faculty who then have to do the work.

That was my major complaint about Administrative work in France. Most of the time was spent, not thinking about how to do things better, but interpreting and trying to figure out how to implement a procedure coming from the ministry.

In contrats, at Brown, I have some colleagues who are vigilant about those questions. Whenever a procedural issue comes up while we're making a decision, the interrupt and say: "Those don't matter. First we figure out what the right decision is, then we'll find a way to make it work. The Brown Administration is receptive to our good arguments." After hearing that comment periodically, I have internalized it: the Administrators, just like the Janitors, are there to help us do our job.